At the feisty age of 97, Bonnie Jean slipped away peacefully in the night, Tuesday, December 11, 2018, at Atria Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was born November 23,1921 in Kewanna , IN, the daughter of Don & Edna (Smith) Nafe. When her parents moved to Michigan to work in the Willow Run Bomber plant during WWII, Bonnie was in nursing school in Indianapolis, Indiana. When she graduated she too moved to Ypsilanti where she met Gwen Carl Morhous. She was a young nurse at the old Beyer hospital and he, the supervising architect of the new.
Bonnie was a very bright, independent woman who in some ways was way ahead of her time. She found her intellectual love as an emergency room nurse supervisor, where the excitement of a busy emergency room kept her energized and passionate about great emergency patient care. She had amusing stories to tell and if anyone ever needed emergency care, they’d want her on their team. In another lifetime, she might have become a very successful doctor. She was very proud of her nursing career having worked at one time or another at all the local hospitals. She even worked at the Chelsea hospital at it’s beginning when it was just one building with an emergency clinic.
During her time at in the emergency room of old St. Joes, she moved to Ann Arbor, where she met Clyde Lausted. They “Bonnie & Clyde” married July 11, 1972. They soon purchased a cottage on Portage Lake as Clyde was an old sailor from Buffalo, NY. She fell in love with summer cottage life! Nothing made her happier than (except perhaps garage sale hunting) when friends and family came to visit. Her son, Marc and his family loved to visit and sail on the lake, and she rejoiced when her Grandson Zac would come to stay.
Bonnie & Clyde moved to Chelsea from Ann Arbor in 1993. In the last years of her life, long after Clyde died in 2003, she lived at the CRC Independent Living for a while, then moved to Atria Park Assisted Living in Ann Arbor.
Survivors include her son, Marc (Kathy) Morhous of Dexter; a grandson, Zachary Morhous of Kalamazoo; 2 sisters, Peggy Stadtmiller of Ypsilanti and Evelyn Sue Guiley of Elkhart, IN; and her loving nieces, Cindy Wicht, Sally Pakala, Susie Slagenwhite, Linda Hall, and Lisa Wade. She was preceded in death by 5 siblings.
A memorial service will be held Thursday, December 20, at 4:00 at Cole Funeral Chapel, Chelsea. The family will receive friends from 2:00 - 4 pm. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer's Association.
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